Evolution of a design wall

Like I said in my post this morning, I have been busy since spring. I've been on a mission to complete UFOs and use up fabric I already own. I really believe I could sew for the rest of my life with what I have in stash and scraps. Did I say that out loud?

So first, I saw a quilt on the cover of American Patchwork and Quilting a few issues ago and had one of those "I have to make that" moments. Kathie Holland designed the wonderful scrappy rail fence on the cover of the August, 2011 issue. (Note added 10/7: Funnily enough, I found her blog just recently, but didn't realize I had made one of her designs until she posted a comment on this post!) I went scrap hunting in every closet and plastic tub in my house and turned this:

into this:

which became this:

There are some truly ancient scraps in this quilt. It's really a fabric album. There are pieces of fabric from dresses my mom Grace sewed for me and from dresses that I sewed for my daughter Grace.

I also worked on the leader-ender double 4 patch that's been hanging around for a while (on the right in this pic):

I'm strictly leader-ender-ing that one, though, so it might be around for a while.

Finally, as I was digging in one plastic bucket I found a kit I bought in about 1999-ish and since it was a quick-to-finish kind of a thing I put it together a couple of weekends ago.

I think I'll spend the winter quilting.

Check out other design walls here, thanks to Judy.

Well, hello again

Ok - it's now customary for me to go months without posting. I'm not even going to say I'm going to try and do better. We'll just see how it goes.

I have been busy since spring. I finished the restoration of a church member's grandmother's flower garden. All the flowers looked like this:


And now the whole quilt looks like this:


I was nervous to return it to her, but she loved it. I had previously replaced the binding on another antique quilt she has, a North Carolina Lily, and she was thrilled with that job, but this one's so much bigger. And this is her favorite quilt because her grandmother made it and she remembers sleeping under it as a child.

I did have to go a bit lighter on the gold fabric - but it's still in character, I think.

This project has really made me want to do quilt restoration as a side career. I would love that. I'd love to go to the workshops Nancy Kirk holds. Or at least purchase her dvds. But I think the next step is to find another quilt that needs restoration and restore half of it so I can have something to show people. Sounds like a good reason to go antique hunting!

Bloggers' Quilt Festival

Here is my entry for the Bloggers' Quilt Festival that Amy at Amy's Creative Side is hosting. It's a Santa sampler from Bird Brain Designs. Las Colchas started it as a block of the month in, maybe 2008? The only thing is, I did everything completely different than was included in the block of the month. I used different fabric to embroider the Santas on, used a different embroidery stitch, and used a different color perl cotton than came with the kits. One day when I was in the shop picking up my kit for the month, I saw a fat quarter stack of these Sturbridge Village scarlets and knew I had to have them to set the Santas, so I did a completely different setting than the one that came with the pattern. So, I'm not sure I can call this a block of the month anymore.
The picture above was taken when the top was finished I finally finished hand quilting it last fall. I'm really happy with it and I'm thinking about entering it in the San Antonio Quilt Show this year. I've been quilting for many, many years but have never entered a quilt in a judged show. I would love to get a ribbon of any kind - "honorable mention" would thrill me to death.
Yesterday was graduation at the college I work at. More than 870 students crossed the stage (and more than that graduated, but chose not to be in the ceremony). It was chaos right up until the time of the processional, but after that it was perfect! My part of graduation is to help organize the "VIPs" on the stage party - our administrators, board of trustees, the speakers, soloist, etc., making sure they have their academic regalia on right, get lined up for the processional like they're supposed to be and get to the right place at the right time, etc. It's a wonderful ceremony and the students are so happy and excited, but I'm always so glad when it's over!

On my design wall today

These 14.5 inch 30's reproduction blocks are on my design wall today - but they'll probably come down today, too. When I finished Southern Stars I started looking for another UFO to finish and these came out. I'm just not into them right now, though. I have no idea how to set them, for one thing. Also, I have somewhere in my stash muslin purchased at the same time to use in setting them, and I can't find it. I just have to wait until it shows up, I guess.

So, I think I'll put the double four-patches, which were a leader-ender-use-up-leftovers project on the front burner and see what happens.

Here are some more design walls to look at, thanks to Judy.

Lucky me!

Mother's Day has been great so far and it just started! I'm that weird kind of woman who actually likes gifts with cords, so I'm loving this panini press. I'm thinking we're going to have paninis every night this week.
And who wouldn't love the gift of original artwork from their favorite and future famous artist who just happens to be my daughter!

Orange Dessert

I like recipe blogs almost as much as I like quilt blogs, so I thought I might try to throw in some recipes every so often. I made this dish today which goes by the very unimaginative name of "Orange Dessert." I usually make it in one big dish, but two smaller ones fit in my freezer better. And as it turned out, it was a sort of serendipity that I made it in two dishes. Dave decided this morning to go visit a neighbor who cares for her husband who has Alzheimer's (who happens to be a retired pastor in our conference) and as he was leaving I handed him one of these to take with him. He also took her some Mother's Day flowers. He can be a pretty good guy when he wants to!

I got this recipe from Southern Living magazine a few years ago, so you know it's going to be good. I make it as low fat and low sugar as I can, as you will see.

Orange Dessert

1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted
60 Ritz crackers, crushed (I use the low sodium ones)
1/4 cup sugar (I use Splenda)
1 (14-oz) can Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk (I use the fat-free Eagle Brand)
1 6-oz can frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed
1 8-oz container Cool Whip, thawed (I use sugar-free)
2 11-oz cans mandarin oranges, drained (I use the no-sugar-added ones)

Combine first three ingredients. Set aside 3/4 cup. Press remaining crumb mixture into a 13x9x2 baking dish and set aside.

Combine Eagle Brand and orange juice. Fold in Cool Whip and oranges. Spoon mixture over crust and sprinkle with reserved crumb mixture. Cover and freeze until firm.

I set it out a little while before I serve it. Just long enough so that the mandarin oranges thaw a little, otherwise they're like chunks of orange ice.

Enjoy!

Southern Stars top is done!